LALLI: My name is Nina Lalli, and I’m from New York City.
FIORE: I’m Jennifer Fiore. I grew up on Long Island, but I live here in the city now.
BUHRMAN: How did you two meet?
LALLI: We met in a ceramics class.
BUHRMAN: In college?
LALLI: No, it was just a class we took for fun.
BUHRMAN: How long ago was that?
FIORE: About fifteen years ago.
LALLI: Yeah, around 2011.
BUHRMAN: How do you define your creative identity, and what early influences shaped the way you think about your work today?
FIORE: I’m definitely influenced by art. I studied art history, painting, and photography in college, and then I went on to get an MFA in photography. I try to get out and see art regularly—ideally every couple of weeks—even though I’m not always great at keeping up with that because I get so bogged down in the studio.I spend a lot of time in the Rockefeller Wing, as well as the Etruscan and Cycladic sections of the Met. I often take shapes from those objects and kind of reinterpret—or even “plagiarize”—them in my own work. I also spend a lot of time visiting contemporary galleries. I design by making. It’s rare that something I have in my head comes out exactly the way I imagined it, so it’s really about iterating, playing with scraps, and seeing where the process takes me.
LALLI: I didn’t study art, art history, or design. I always liked making things and was always an artsy kid, but when I went to college, I didn’t really consider going to art school. I felt like it was time to be a grown-up, so I stopped doing all of that for a while. As a teenager, I really liked ceramics. My parents were very supportive—I went to art camp, took a class at Greenwich House Pottery in high school, and attended an arts-focused high school. But eventually, I stepped away from it. When I turned thirty, I took a ceramics class as a birthday present to myself, just for fun. At that point, I had been working as a prop stylist’s assistant, so I was on photo shoots looking at tabletop objects, especially for food shoots. I didn’t care as much about the photos themselves—I was more interested in the props, the process of selecting objects, and going to prop houses where you’d find both older pieces, like ironstone, and more minimal contemporary ones. Sometimes I’d look at something and think, maybe I could make that. So I took a class hoping to create a few things for myself, but I ended up getting completely hooked on the process of ceramics. That’s how I got here.
BUHRMAN: When did you first realize that your creativity could be something you pursue professionally, not just as a hobby?
FIORE: We’re still trying.
LALLI: Yeah. We are. Neither of us has another job right now, but it really happened gradually.
FIORE: We got really lucky when we first launched the business. It was the early days of Instagram and Pinterest, and people found us. We received some really big orders before we were fully ready for them. But we didn’t take the full leap until later. Nina eventually left her freelance work, and I had been at my job with the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation for a long time. It was a great position when my son was younger because it gave me the flexibility to pick him up from school or stay home if he was sick. Once he got older and more independent, I realized I finally had the freedom to take a risk. At that point, we were already busy and growing, but we also knew we could never truly grow unless we committed to the work full time.
LALLI: When we first started, there wasn’t much risk. We weren’t leasing a storefront or doing anything huge. We were still working in communal studios, and it felt more like, we can make a website for free and see if anyone buys anything. So in the beginning, it was really about testing things without relying on it for income. When we moved here, that changed. We bought one kiln, then another. Now we’re paying rent and dealing with an insane Con Edison bill. But early on, it was just about trying it and seeing what would happen. We’ve grown very organically. We stayed in our old space until 2020, and then during COVID, when people were moving out, this larger space opened up and our landlord gave us a good deal. Now I can’t even imagine how we used to pack boxes, eat lunch, and do everything in that tiny room.
BUHRMAN: What parts of your background still quietly shape your work today?
FIORE: I’ve always liked working with my hands, and I’ve always liked making a mess. Even in the darkroom, I was always the messiest person, so I think that’s just part of my temperament. A lot of it comes from walking around the city and noticing textures, architectural details, and the way light moves through New York. It’s not always something that translates directly into a ceramic object, but it still shapes how we see and think. When we first started collaborating on the brand, we realized we were both drawn to the same kinds of things—the way light reflects off windows, the surfaces of buildings, and small visual details in the city. That’s a big part of how we collaborate.
LALLI: It’s not always hands-on. A lot of it is simply looking, noticing, and responding to the same visual language.
BUHRMAN: Was there another profession you wanted to pursue before ceramics?
FIORE: I thought I would stay with photography. I just never really figured out how to navigate the art world.
LALLI: I thought I would be a writer, and for a while, I was. My parents both worked as editors in magazines and books, so I grew up around that world. But eventually, I got tired of talking all the time. In some ways, I had what felt like a dream job, but I didn’t actually love it. After that, I kind of randomly fell into prop styling. I knew someone who was doing it, and until then, I didn’t really know what a prop stylist was. But once I started, I realized I loved working with objects and training my eye. That eventually led me back, in a very unexpected way, to making things myself.
BUHRMAN: Who are your biggest inspirations, and why?
FIORE: I’ve had some really great teachers. In grad school, I got to work with Larry Sultan, and he was incredible. He really taught me to trust my instincts, not second-guess myself, and to go with the flow a little more. It’s so important when someone gives you permission to work that way, because it can be hard to give yourself that permission. He’s probably the most direct personal influence I can think of. I also worked with Judy Pfaff as an undergraduate, and she was incredible as well. Her fearlessness—and her ability to push you to articulate what you were doing—had a huge impact on me.
BUHRMAN: What is something outside your field that strongly influences the way you think or make things?
LALLI: I really love hunting through old things—flea markets, vintage objects, furniture, housewares. Searching through those kinds of places is probably one of my favorite activities, even though I don’t get to do it as much as I’d like anymore. There used to be a few flea markets in Chelsea that I loved, and I still have things I bought there. I love the process of searching and the feeling of finding an old object with some kind of strange history or unique design detail. Originally, that interest started with clothes, but now it’s more focused on furniture and household objects. Even when I need something basic, like wine glasses, I can’t just buy anything—I want to find something with character. That definitely influences the way I think about form and objects.
BUHRMAN: Where does a project usually start for you—an idea, a reference, or a problem you’re trying to solve?
FIORE: There are different kinds of projects. Sometimes it starts with an idea—we try something out and make sure we leave room for experimentation. Other times, it begins with production orders, where we need to make multiples.
FIORE: For me, orders are actually useful because I like rules. I like parameters and boundaries—I can’t really work without them. An order gives me structure. But there’s always a point where the rules become too confining, and I need to push against them to make space for ideas that have been in my head or my notebooks for a while. We also do different kinds of firings outside the studio—Raku, wood firing, and recently soda firing. Those are opportunities to make work that feels more special or one-of-a-kind. Sometimes that’s when I finally try an idea I’ve been holding onto for a long time, knowing it might become something I won’t repeat in the same way again.
LALLI: Those firings are also part of what pushed us to experiment more with glaze. For a long time, we mostly worked with a limited palette—matte white, gloss white, black, clear, and blue. It was harder to create truly one-of-a-kind surfaces in the studio. But after Jen took a glaze class, we started developing our own glazes and experimenting more with surfaces.
BUHRMAN: What does a typical creative day look like when you’re working on a project?
LALLI: I’m pretty inconsistent, but when we’re in the middle of production, the day can feel a little monotonous—almost like an assembly line. I usually start with any slabs I need to make and try to get the more repetitive work out of the way first. If I know I have work to finish for an order, it’s really hard for me to relax and have fun. So I need to clear my head by getting that necessary work done first. Once that’s out of the way, I can play more and move into the part that requires more thought. Ceramics is also just a very slow process. Things take days because they need to dry to exactly the right point before you can move on. Some days I come in and something is finally ready to work on, and that’s the best feeling—because you can finally put the pieces together and move forward.
BUHRMAN: What kind of environment helps you create your best work?
FIORE: Our studio, definitely. It would be nice if it were bigger, cleaner, and had more natural light, but we’re very comfortable in it.
LALLI: Sometimes the best environment is when one of us gets to be in the studio alone. Jen usually comes in earlier than I do, and I think that quiet time is really helpful. Before I had kids, I used to work late all the time, and being alone in the studio at night was when I could really get into the zone.
FIORE: We also listen to WNYC all day, which isn’t very cool, but it helps. Part of it is not having to make another decision—we can just turn it on and work. Then we take breaks, eat lunch, have snacks, and drink coffee. That small rhythm helps.
BUHRMAN: What part of your process do you find the most frustrating, and what part is the most rewarding?
LALLI: I hate glazing. Glazing is the worst. I put it off until I absolutely have to do it, and I hate it.
FIORE: Anything that has to be too perfect is frustrating for me. These lamp parts, for example—even though they’re just cylinders, they’re so tedious. But it’s rewarding when they all come together and I see the finished piece assembled.
LALLI: I’ve also really tried to stop making the things I hate making. We used to have a lot more items on the website, and people would order them and I’d think, I cannot believe I have to make this again. Now we’ve taken a lot of that stuff off. There are plates I hate making, and mugs I kind of hate making, but they still sell.
FIORE: The most rewarding part is when something comes out better than you expected, especially when it’s a new idea and you look at it and think, I love it. That feeling usually doesn’t last very long, but it’s great when it happens.
BUHRMAN: How do you know when a piece is finished? Or do you ever really know?
FIORE: With ceramics, once it comes out, there isn’t much more you can do. So in that sense, it’s simpler than some other mediums.
LALLI: But when you’re actually making something, there are definitely forms you can keep touching forever. I used to make these carved bowls where I would keep thinning them and thinning them, wanting them to become more and more delicate, until eventually I would break them. So there really is a point where you have to know when to stop. There are also designs that I still don’t think I’ve solved. I’ve made versions of certain shapes over and over again, and the first version is still the one closest to what I imagined. So sometimes the question of whether something is finished is less about one piece and more about whether the form itself has ever really been resolved.
BUHRMAN: Do you have any work here that you would consider a failure?
LALLI: Oh, yeah. A lot of it. Not all of it, but probably ninety percent.
FIORE: There’s definitely work that’s cracked or not really functional, even if there’s something about it that we still like. Sometimes the shape is right, but it isn’t really saleable. And then there are other pieces that are just totally wrong and I don’t even want to look at them anymore.
BUHRMAN: What would you say was the breakthrough point in your career?
LALLI: Getting our own studio.
FIORE: Yeah, being busy enough to justify our first studio, and then being busy enough again to justify moving into this bigger space. Also quitting our day jobs. Financially that may have been stupid, but emotionally it was amazing.
BUHRMAN: What is your favorite piece of work that you’ve done?
FIORE: That changes all the time, so it’s hard to answer. But if I think about the pieces I’d want to keep for myself, one would probably be the box bowl that I make, especially the Raku-fired version.
LALLI: For me it would probably be something wood-fired. Sometimes with wood firing, the glaze result is just so much bigger or stranger or more beautiful than you expected. Sometimes it’s hideous, and sometimes it feels like magic. When it works, those are probably my favorite pieces.
BUHRMAN: Do you consider your work to be beautiful? And if so, what does beauty mean to you?
FIORE: I think when it’s successful, it’s beautiful.
LALLI: For me, beauty would be something elegant, a little surprising, and a little awkward—something slightly off.
FIORE: I don’t want my work to feel cute or purely decorative. It is decorative, because these are objects in the world, but I don’t want it to stop there.
LALLI: The moments when I’ve thought something was truly beautiful have often been with the wood-fired pieces. There’s something about those surfaces that feels magical, almost like I can’t even take full credit for them. Something just happened in the kiln.
BUHRMAN: Do you think about time when you make your work—the past, the present, or the future?
FIORE: I think about making things that people will want to keep for a long time.
LALLI: Yeah, I think about timelessness. When something is successful, it feels like it has always been there, or like you found it rather than designed it. Not ancient, exactly, but not tied to one very specific moment.
BUHRMAN: What do you think your work says about the time we’re living in right now?
FIORE: That’s a good question, because this is probably the grimmest time I can remember. We’re not making political work in any direct sense.
LALLI: But I do think that making things by hand matters right now. Everyone is relying more and more on technology, everything is more detached and digital, and making tactile things that people can actually hold has its own kind of meaning. Caring about beauty, joy, and material presence feels important. It’s political in a quiet way, even if it isn’t explicitly political work.
FIORE: At the very least, we’re not participating in some more destructive level of that world. We talked about that a lot during the general strike period. We’re barely participating in capitalism as it is.
BUHRMAN: What is something you are still trying to understand or explore through your work?
LALLI: Honestly, I still feel like I don’t know anything.
BUHRMAN: Where do you see yourselves in five years?
FIORE: We’d both like to be in a more design-oriented environment and not be doing so much tableware, or at least doing it in a different way.
LALLI: Yeah, more one-of-a-kind work. More sculptural work. We’d like people to think of us more as sculptural artists in that sense.
FIORE: And financially, the goal has always been to get stable enough that we can focus more on the things we most want to make. We’ve been slowly moving in that direction, but the real dream would be to only say yes to the work that actually feels right, instead of saying yes to something because we need to pay Con Edison that month.
LALLI: We also want the work to reach the right audience—people who will irrationally fall in love with an object and want to live with it, not just people who need something functional. That connection feels magical when it happens.
BUHRMAN: How do you want to be remembered?
FIORE: Honestly, I don’t really expect to be remembered. I haven’t thought about that very much.
LALLI: But if we are remembered, I’d want it to be because the work had its own unique voice or point of view. One of the best compliments we can get is when someone says our work doesn’t look like everything else they’re seeing. So maybe that’s the answer—that it feels distinct.
BUHRMAN: Last question. What is one piece of advice you would give to young artists and designers today?
LALLI: Be a plumber.
FIORE: But also, really, make the work that you love. Eventually you will find the audience for it, even if it takes a long time. There are shapes we’ve been making since the beginning, and it took years for them to really be seen.
LALLI: And while you’re young, mess around. Try things. It gets harder when you’re older. Don’t be afraid to change your mind if something isn’t right.
FIORE: Yeah. Don’t be afraid to admit that the thing you thought was your dream job isn’t actually your dream. That can be scary, because you feel like you should stay loyal to the plan, but sometimes changing direction is the most important thing.
BUHRMAN:
Thank you both so much.
FIORE:
Thank you for the thoughtful questions.
LALLI:
Yeah, really. It was flattering that someone so young was so curious about our work. We’re middle-aged moms toiling away in the studio, so it made us feel relevant in a really nice way. We love talking to students.
FIORE:
And I think what you’re doing—talking to people, staying curious, learning how many different kinds of creative lives and jobs there are—is the best approach. When you’re younger, it’s easy to think there are only a handful of possible paths. But there are so many strange, specific roles and lives people end up building for themselves, and you don’t really understand that until you start talking to people and figuring it out.